TODAY IN HISTORY

1933

US House of Representatives completes congressional action on an amendment to repeal Prohibition, the prevention of the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages.

1942

Japanese invade island of Bali in Dutch East Indies during World War II.

1962

Astronaut John Glenn, aboard the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule, becomes the first American to orbit the earth.

1986

Russia launches the Mir space station.

2003

A fire sparked by heavy-metal band Great White’s pyrotechnic display kills 98 people and injures 187 others at a nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island.

2014

Australian journalist Peter Greste and two Al Jazeera colleagues go on trial in Egypt on terror charges.